Bulletin Articles
“Days of Vengeance”
Categories: Iron sharpens iron“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.” (Luke 21.20-23)
Jesus spoke these words foretelling the days that would culminate in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and they are very effective at creating a sense of fear and foreboding in us even today. We live in a relatively safe and secure society, in which we generally trust that strangers have no interest in murdering us for our shoes. We’re even more inclined to trust civil authorities, and we trust members of our own family perhaps most of all. It hasn’t always been so prudent to assume all of that goodwill. As Jesus said a few verses prior, “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you will be put to death” (Lk 21.16). The Bible tells us what was going to happen through these prophecies of Jesus, and if we know what to look for, assorted details of some later books confirm it for us, but it’s obscure, and we often get the wrong impression about how it looked when the time came.
The main problem is that we assume it was a sudden and unexpected occurrence. Never mind that Jesus told his followers of many signs they could use to see its approach; since we focus on the simplest facts of the matter, we forget that soon-to-be-emperor Titus’ destruction of the city and temple in 70AD were part of a long series of events that led logically to that conclusion. But Josephus—a Jewish leader who saw the signs and defected to the Romans while the getting was good—did record those events in detail. We ought to take everything he says with a grain of salt, knowing that he has an interest in painting the Romans in the best possible light, that he has every reason to sanitize his own part in the story, and most importantly that he is not among those commissioned by the Holy Spirit to write the scriptures for us. Nevertheless, a few details from his account are worth considering. If they’re even half true, they teach us a lot.
While the Romans were besieging Jerusalem, a group of Idumeans about 20,000 strong was called to the city to help the Jews. These were the people of king Herod, who reigned during Jesus’ ministry. Far from helping, though, they simply took a side in the internal divisions, which quickly became violent on a massive scale. These Idumeans
vented their rage on the men who had shut them out, making no distinction between those who cried for mercy and those who fought. …The entire outer court of the Temple was deluged with blood, and 8,500 corpses greeted the rising sun. (Josephus, BJ IV.310-313)
Not content with attacking the assembled militia, they then
plundered every house and killed anyone they met. Then thinking the common people not worth bothering about they went after the high priests. It was against them that the main rush was made, and they were soon caught and killed. (IV.314-316)
They committed many more atrocities before leaving the city, but even then the problems weren’t over. After their departure, the Zealots—among whom Simon the apostle was formerly numbered—gained control of the city and began killing anyone suspected of defecting to the Romans outside the walls.
[A]nyone caught going out…was assumed to be on his way to the Romans and dispatched forthwith. However, if he paid enough they let him go, and only if he failed to pay was he a traitor, so that the rich purchased their escape and only the poor were slaughtered. Dead bodies along all the main roads were heaped up high.... (IV.378-380)
You can well imagine how difficult this sort of treatment made it for Christians to heed Jesus’ warning, “flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart” (Lk 21.21). The really astonishing thing is that this occurred two full years before the final destruction of the city, and it’s not as if this was the beginning of the unrest, nor did life in Jerusalem improve much between these events and the end of the war.
These poor people lived day by day in a situation in which the Gentiles “trample the holy city for forty-two months” (Re 11.2), and yet it wasn’t until the bodies were literally piling up in the streets that many of them decided it might be time to consider going somewhere else to live. There are implications from this on the state of our society right now, although we’re only in the early stages this kind of strife. But more importantly, how often do we behave in this foolish and carefree manner toward sin?
Sin poses a much greater threat to us than enemies foreign or domestic—as Jesus said, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10.28). Yet we allow this eternal danger to become normal and mundane, and we often don’t take it seriously, even while it is harming souls all around us, and perhaps even our own. We must be on guard, ever watchful against our adversary, the devil.
“But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21.36)
